Nevertheless, see Saint-Antoine, not to be curbed, dragging old Foulon and Berthier to the lantern, after which the cloud disappears, as thunder-clouds do.

III.—–­Menads and Feast of Pikes

French Revolution means here the open, violent rebellion and victory of disemprisoned anarchy against corrupt, worn-out authority; till the frenzy working itself out, the uncontrollable be got harnessed.  A transcendental phenomenon, overstepping all rules and experience, the crowning phenomenon of our modern time.

The National Assembly takes the name Constituent; with endless debating, gets the rights of man written down and promulgated.  A memorable night is August 4, when they abolish privilege, immunity, feudalism, root and branch, perfecting their theory of irregular verbs.  Meanwhile, seventy-two chateaus have flamed aloft in the Maconnais and Beaujolais alone.  Ill stands it now with some of the seigneurs.  And, glorious as the meridian, M. Necker is returning from Bale.

Pamphleteering, moreover, opens its abysmal throat wider and wider, never to close more.  A Fourth Estate of able editors springs up, increases and multiplies, irrepressible, incalculable.

No, this revolution is not of the consolidating kind.  Lafayette maintains order by his patrols; we hear of white cockades, and, worse still, black cockades; and grain grows still more scarce.  One Monday morning, maternity awakes to hear children weeping for bread, must forth into the streets. Allons!  Let us assemble!  To the Hotel de Ville, to Versailles, to the lantern!  All women gather and go; crowds storm all stairs, force out all women; there is a universal “press of women.”  Who will storm the Hotel de Ville, but for shifty usher Maillard, who snatches a drum, beats his Rogues’ March to Versailles!  And after them the National Guard, resolute in spite of Mon General, who, indeed, must go with them—­Saint-Antoine having already gone.  Maillard and his menads demand at Versailles bread; speech with the king for a deputation.  The king speaks words of comfort.  Words?  But they want “bread, not so much discoursing!”

Towards midnight comes Lafayette; seems to have saved the situation; gets to bed about five in the morning.  But rascaldom, gathering about the chateau, breaks in.  One of the royal bodyguard fires, whereupon the deluge pours in, would deal utter destruction but for the coming of the National Guard.  The bodyguard mount the tri-colour.  There is no choice now.  The king must from Versailles to Paris, in strange procession; finally reaches the long-deserted Palace of the Tuileries.  It is Tuesday, October 6, 1789.

And so again, on clear arena under new conditions, with something even of a new stateliness, we begin a new course of action.  Peace of a father restored to his children?  Not only shall Paris be fed, but the king’s hand be seen in that work—­King Louis, restorer of French liberty!